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UBPA b3-2 Pavilion World Expo 2010

The pavilion is, as requested by the Expo, a simple rectangular container measuring 78 by 28 metres, with a completely free interior, a neutral space without intermediate pillars to house the installations of the cities participating in the event, which have later been identified as Bologna, Shenzhen and Seoul. As the construction is part of the cooperation program launched by the Expo in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of the Environment, the project entrusted to Archea after a competition by invitation has transformed the hypothesis of industrial-style shell, the theme of the neutral box, into a mechanism for the diffusion of daylight; the space is therefore bathed in daylight throughout the day without requiring any energy consumption. The roof is conceived as a shed structure, furrowed, by beams whose steel structure has been covered and turned in to a succession of reflecting surfaces that diffuse the light from above.
The building has been designed in such a way as to allow the construction to be used for other purposes, and it may thus be taken apart and reassembled in another location. The entire structure has been realized in steel, with mechanical assembly methods and no use of cement; this makes it possible to recover the parts used in the construction. It is in any case a matter of a simple shell which may serve countless other purposes and house numerous activities; it may become a sports facility as a gym or house a swimming pool, an industrial shed or an exhibition and museum venue, a small covered market, or a place for leisure activities. All these uses are wholly compatible with a very simple interior surrounded by extremely light outer walls that have nevertheless been ideated and realized as very thick walls, and that vaunt outstanding insulating properties. From the interior outwards this layering comprises simple plasterboards into which a sequence of square windows in various dimensions have been cut to form an oblique arrangement.
An internal air chamber and metal panels with a polyurethane foam core for thermal and acoustic insulation are fixed onto the load-bearing columns made from simple metal profiles. A second air chamber contained in the layer between the secondary substructure and the outer skin made from aluminium frames faced with a silicon textile gives this large box a soft and vibratile surface. The outer shell, half-way between the extroverted spatialism introduced in the Sixties and Seventies by leading representatives of Italian art and the more recent optical experiences, “obligatorily” declines to compete in volumetric terms with the other exhibition pavilions, to perform a role of pause or place of transition, a covered square or loggia accessible through four large doors placed on opposite sides, cut out on the surface in such a way as not to interrupt the itinerary along the Urban Best Practices area.